Dueling with the Three Musketeers

by Lisa Samson

  Ophelia looked over at d’Artagnan, his youthful face sweet in sleep. How in the world were they going to keep these two from getting into trouble and exposing the enchanted circle? She had no idea. Maybe they should forget about the circle come September.

  So far, the outcomes of the traveling literary characters had been good for all involved, including what happened to Captain Ahab when he returned to the land of Moby Dick. Matters went as planned, according to Cato Grubbs, the mad scientist responsible for the circle to begin with, who accompanied the sea captain. Due to the trio’s intervention, the crew of the Pequod made it back to Nantucket safely with a hold full of whale oil. Ahab decided to divorce himself from his greatest love, the sea, and move with his wife and son to the country, where he lived out his days in peace, eating no whale meat. In fact, he became quite the ardent vegetarian.

  Ophelia fixed her gaze on the countess. But this traveler? Ophelia couldn’t get one picture in her mind of how this would work out.

  Inside the circle, d’Artagnan stirred. Ophelia hurried over just as he was opening his eyes.

  “Why you are beautiful!” he said to her.

  She blushed. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. “I’m Ophelia Easterday. And you must be d’Artagnan.”

  He took her hand and kissed the back. “My reputation precedes me?”

  “Yes,” she said. Oh my, but he was beautiful, she thought. His hair caught the light of the candle with its silver blond strands. True, it could have stood a good washing, but there was time for that.

  “How did I end up here? Where am I?” He looked around at the attic. “Can you tell me what is going on?”

  His clear eyes were so earnest, something so trusting inside them, Ophelia realized she not only could, but should be straight with him about everything.

  “How about getting out of this attic and going for a walk?” she asked.

  “Lead the way, Miss Easterday.” He noticed the Countess de Winter asleep on the couch. “How did she get here?” His eyes narrowed.

  “I’ll explain outside.”

  “Is it safe to leave her here alone?”

  “She’s passed out.”

  He set his jaw. “Good!”

  At this point, you might be wondering how someone from France and an American can be conversing together. Well, here’s a fascinating little fact about the enchanted circle. Because Ophelia’s translation was written in English, all the characters speak the same language. Brilliant, isn’t it? And quite handy for all concerned.

  Linus decided he didn’t want to go to bed just then. It was summer after all, and only midnight. So when Walter asked if he’d like to go back with him to the dorm, Linus said, “Sure thing.”

  They went back through the secret passage.

  Once the Pierce family townhome, the building was quite ornate, and when the boys emerged from the closet, voices from down in the main hall wafted up the carved walnut steps and straight into their eardrums. They rushed to the top of the steps.

  A man’s voice spoke, but his back was to them. They only made out the words, “inheritance” and “about time.”

  “I wish I could hear what he’s saying,” said Walter.

  Of course he did. Walter loved being in the know. Walter loved hearing the ins and outs of people’s lives like we all do. The only difference is that Walter actually admitted he was nosy.

  Madrigal spoke loudly and clearly. “Well, Johann, it’s quite a surprise. After all this time you come back into the country and start demanding things, and from what you’ve said previously, I clearly thought you had no interest in this place.”

  “… time … finally … mother and father always liked me —”

  Madrigal cut him off. “I suggest a good night’s sleep for all of us. You’ve had a long trip, and I’m tired too. I’ll show you where you can sleep. Please forgive the mess the fire made.”

  Madrigal’s high heels clicked on the marble floor of the entrance hall and her brother, most likely wearing comfortable shoes, followed almost without a sound.

  “What do you think that was about?” Walter turned to Linus.

  “Her brother?”

  They set off down the hall to Walter’s room.

  “Sounds like it could be. He sure stands like she does.” Walter swung open the door to a small chamber with two single beds, one empty. Two dressers, one empty. Two closets, one empty. One bookshelf, completely filled.

  “Hey!” a voice whispered down the hallway just as the boys stepped into Walter’s room.

  Linus backed out and peered down the hall, his face deepening to a shade of red. “Hi, Clarice.”

  Clarice stayed at the school for the summer because her parents had better things to do with their time than spend it with their daughter, who would have just as soon been away from them. In this, she and Linus had much in common. She pulled her long blond hair back into a ponytail. “I was just going for a run.”

  She was the athletic type. Don’t try to understand it, just know it takes all kinds to make a world.

  “Want to come?” she asked Linus.

  “Sure.” He turned to Walter. “Okay?”

  “Oh, don’t mind me. I’ve got a book to read.” He waved them off.

  Ophelia took d’Artagnan straight to the manse. Father Lou remained true to his usual, unflappable nature. It was almost as if he saw people like d’Artagnan traipse through his kitchen at midnight three days a week. “Tell me everything,” he said, pulling out a chair for the new guest.

  Ophelia introduced the men to one another.

  “Are you hungry?” Father Lou asked the latest traveler through the portal.

  “Famished.”

  “Go ahead and put your sword by the door. Feel free to take off your boots.” He turned to the refrigerator and pulled out the makings for a turkey sandwich.

  “What is that lighted box? Is it witchcraft?” d’Artagnan said, pointing to the refrigerator.

  “Not hardly. We’ll explain in a minute,” said Father Lou. “Go ahead, Ophelia.”

  “Before I begin,” Ophelia said, “I need to ask, have you ever read The Three Musketeers?”

  “Yes.” Father Lou took two slices of bread from out of the bag.

  “Oh, thank goodness!”

  “You know of the musketeers?” asked d’Artagnan. “Magnificent!”

  Ophelia sat. “Yes, they are. But you are destined to be even greater.”

  “Surely not!”

  “Just wait and see,” said Father Lou.

  “How is it you know so much about me?” asked the musketeer.

  “Let me explain,” Ophelia said.

  “And while you are explaining, miss, can you tell me what those moving contraptions are called? No horses? The streets are clean. And those lights, high up on the tree trunks. What are they?”

  It’s going to be a long night, thought Ophelia. “I’ll be happy to get to that, but first let me tell you how you got to be here.” She looked at Father Lou. “All right. Let me just say we made a mistake and the Countess de Winter came through as well.”

  “Oh dear.” The priest shook his head.

  “Pah!” said d’Artagnan. “That woman!”

  “Don’t worry, son,” he said, moving over to lay a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “It gets worse.”

  Ophelia suppressed a smile. “All right. Here goes.” She promised herself that in the next month she would write down this speech instead of stumbling over it time after time.

  In the middle of her explanation, Father Lou set the sandwich in front of his guest. Turkey on whole wheat with Provolone cheese, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, and crisp lettuce. D’Artagnan took one bite and proclaimed it, “Magnificent!”

  Amazing what a great sandwich will do, isn’t it? If Father Lou had made liverwurst on pumpernickle with thinly sliced onion and a little butter, d’Artagnan might just have fainted from the delights contained therein!

  She finished the story after another
five minutes. He shook his head. “How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”

  Both Ophelia and Father Lou then told him more about his life than he would have told anybody himself.

  “All right! All right! Enough!” he cried. “When the tale is told to my ears, I can barely listen to my own foolishness.” He wiped his mouth. “Am I really that rash?”

  Ophelia and Father Lou nodded.

  “Sorry about that, son,” Father Lou said. “You’re young. Chalk it up to too much passion and too little experience.”

  “And then you throw a sword into that mix,” said Ophelia.

  Father Lou stood up. “How about we all settle in for the night? Care to stay over here? It’s much cooler.”

  “Anywhere would be better than that attic.” D’Artagnan nodded to Father Lou with appreciation. “Have a bit of time to answer some questions, Father? I saw some strange things along the side of the streets, huge lumpish carriages and not a horse in sight.”

  “Of course.”

  Ophelia sighed with relief. God bless people like Father Lou. Feeling satisfied d’Artagnan wasn’t going anywhere, she ran back across the street, relieved to have one character settled in for the night. And now, back to Milady. Hopefully she was still passed out.

  Oh, such wishful thinking, Ophelia!

  Clarice grabbed Linus’s hand and led him down the hall toward the back stairs of the building knowing Ms. Pierce would be none the wiser that she was leaving well after curfew.

  They walked across Rickshaw Street and between the stone gateposts of Paris Park, the large city park that ran alongside the Bard River. Clarice escorted Linus over to a spot on the riverbank where a large flat rock sat half in the water, half out.

  She sat. Linus sat.

  “I didn’t really want to run. I just wanted to see you.”

  “Okay.” Linus grimaced. He wouldn’t have minded his answers being more than two words with Clarice, but unfortunately, the ways of love stole from his vocabulary and usually subtracted one word from his answers.

  I must seem like a caveman.

  “So, I was walking by your house a little while ago and I saw the weirdest lights coming out of the attic window, the one that has the three circles?”

  “Trefoil.”

  “Trefoil?”

  “Window.”

  “Trefoil window?”

  “Yup.”

  Can I seem more stupid?

  “So anyway, what was that all about?” She reached into the pocket of her gym shorts and pulled out a pack of gum. Holding it out to him—he took a stick—she raised her eyebrows. “Well?”

  He sighed. “Ophelia.”

  “Did she do something?”

  He shook his head.

  “Oh, I should ask her?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay. Say no more.”

  The old Clarice was back, the Clarice that had sat with him for the past month under shade trees in this park, reading while he tried to teach himself Calculus II (I don’t recommend that); the Clarice who ordered three hotdogs at the stand on the corner and ate them with Linus, saying nothing; the Clarice who slaughtered him in tennis every time and never rubbed it in.

  He’d become used to her quiet presence the past few weeks.

  So they simply sat by the river, hand in hand now, breathing in the heated air of August, listening to the sound of crickets and the blurp of frogs, and the sound of a muffled scream borne on the hot wind.

  “What was that?” asked Clarice.

  “Probably nothing,” said Linus.

  She shrugged. “Okay.”

  Oh dear. Poor Ophelia.

  nine

  Even Crabby People Don’t Deserve to Lose Everything They Love

  or The Problem Firmly Established, Nobody Yet Has an Idea What to Do

  That device I just employed, ending the chapter with such a dramatic, mysterious piece of news, is called a hook. It’s called a hook because it’s designed to hook you, like a fish on a line, so you’ll have no choice but to turn the page and start the next chapter.

  Now you know why you didn’t put this book down and pick up the video game controller. Ingenious, isn’t it? Of course a parent might have been reading this with you and bedtime is bedtime and all that. Spoilsport. But we won’t hold it against them. This time.

  Poor Ophelia, having fallen asleep at the worktable, was jerked to consciousness with a knife, a stiletto (a smaller knife with a long, slender blade honed to a needle-sharp point) to be precise, pressed to her throat. And do you know who held the knife?

  Of course you do.

  “Now, be silent and tell me why I’m here,” hissed Milady, who clearly had the knife hidden somewhere on her person, most likely strapped to her leg.

  Ophelia’s eyes darted around the room. Why did she take d’Artagnan over to Father Lou? He would have come in handy just then. “Get that knife away from my throat and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

  It took every bit of courage her fourteen years of experience had ever deposited into her psyche for Ophelia to remain calm. But this wasn’t her first adventure with a literary character, and she was determined to make sure it wasn’t going to be her last.

  “You can keep hold of it, just not against my throat,” Ophelia said calmly, while inside she was screaming, I’ve got a knife … at my throat!

  “All right.” Milady backed away. “But if you try anything … I’ll attack.”

  Whew! “Oh, I know you will, Countess.”

  A gleam of curiosity shone from her eyes. “And how so?”

  “Believe me. I know more about you than you do about me.”

  Here we go again!

  “Would you care to illuminate me?” She crossed her arms over her chest, her movement fluid and graceful.

  Ophelia did the same, her movement anything but. “I’ll just say this so you know who you’re dealing with. I know your left shoulder bears a branding in the shape of a fleur de lis.”

  The blue eyes widened. “No! You could not possibly!”

  Ophelia stood to her feet. “No secret can be kept forever, Countess.”

  “How much?”

  “I’m a lady, madam. I cannot be bribed.” Ophelia, in truth, was having the time of her life now that the knife wasn’t positioned against her jugular vein. No one could accuse her of being a drama queen normally, but perhaps she was just saving it all up for such a time as this.

  “Why am I being held captive?”

  “You have conspired to kill Lord Buckingham, the prime minister of England.”

  That wasn’t actually accurate. At this point in the novel, the Countess de Winter was trying to implicate the queen of France who was madly in love with Lord Buckingham.

  “That isn’t true!” The woman didn’t blink, flinch, or pale.

  “If we find nothing against you in three days’ time, you’ll be free to go about your business.”

  The countess cocked an eyebrow. “You say I’m in England? You don’t sound like any Englishwoman I’ve ever heard.”

  “Have you been to Kingscross in” — Ophelia flipped through her geographical brain file in the section labeled ‘Great Britain’—”Cornwall?”

  “No.” Milady lifted her chin.

  “Well, good. That’s where we are now. And this is how we speak.”

  “But how did I get here? Last I knew I was —”

  “You were given a heavy sleeping tonic and brought here. You live quite the adventurous life, Countess. Must be exciting being an operative of Cardinal Richelieu.”

  “Ha!” the countess laughed. “You know that?”

  And Ophelia knew her plan right then. The old adage came to mind. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

  She leaned forward, her lips close to Milady’s ear. “Le Comte de Rochefort … is … my mother’s cousin. As long as you stay with me, Lady, you are safe.”

  “What about the others?”

  “The young men? My brother is trus
tworthy. The other? He will act like he is your friend only to draw you in. Do not let your vanity believe him for one second.” Ophelia hadn’t liked the way Walter seemed so taken by Milady. This ought to thwart his chances. Wait! Was Ophelia acting like Milady?

  Now that made the countess lose her color. Men not really trying to win her favor? Oh, horror of horrors!

  “Now how about a little food?” Ophelia asked. “I’m sure you must be hungry after the journey.”

  “Indeed I am.” Milady’s face cleared. Obviously now was not the time for her to do anything other than get a clearer picture of what was truly going on. The woman was patient in her dark machinations (evil plans), if nothing else.

  “I’ll be right back with some food.”

  Ophelia exited the room, shutting the door and jiggling the handle as though locking it, and hoping the Countess de Winter wouldn’t try to leave.

  In The Three Musketeers, the Comte (the French word for Count) de Rochefort plays henchman to Cardinal Richelieu, the most powerful man in France at the time. In other words, he took care of the cardinal’s dirty work. (A cardinal is a person with a lot of power in the church. Thankfully, cardinals tend to shy away from using heads of state such as kings, queens, and presidents as puppets these days.) The cardinal had it in for the queen and used the comte and Milady, the Countess de Winter, to try to discredit the queen in the eyes of the king. Cardinal Richelieu feared the queen might have too much sway with her husband, who, quite frankly, wasn’t a very good ruler in his own right (one might wonder if he was one of the dullards), and the cardinal wanted all the influence for himself.

  In other words, Cardinal Richelieu was power hungry, so power hungry he didn’t mind using anyone to accomplish his means, including beautiful countesses.

  Ophelia’s mind was spinning like a top as she prepared a plate of leftovers from the party, including the little cream puffs (some extra for herself). She knew she had to have a serious discussion with Walter. It was obvious her friend was bowled over by the countess’s beauty. Who wouldn’t be?